Baby disease screened out

LONDON doctors have successfully pioneered a new technique to prevent babies being born with a horrific blistering disease.

Teams from Guys and St Thomas' Hospital used gene screening techniques to ensure Emma and Lee Harrison's son James was born without epidermolysis bullosa. The disease, which causes the skin and internal organs to blister, claimed the life of the couple's first child, Adam, who died aged nine months after enduring terrible pain.

It is inherited recessively. Doctors said there was a one-in-17million chance of the pair meeting and having a child.

Mr Harrison, 37, of Northumberland, called preimplantation genetic diagnosis "wonderful", adding: "It gives people like Emma and me a chance to have kids when normally we wouldn't be able to."